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The Last Days of Pompeii, Part One: The City of the Dead

Description

In 79 A.D. Pompeii, Marcus Rufus can't stop thinking about a woman named Oriana who has been on his mind for weeks. He goes to the Temple of Isis to leave an offering, hoping to see her again. When Oriana shows up, Marcus gets caught in the middle of a fight for power between Arbaces, a cultist with special mental abilities, and Oriana's group.

In Pompeii in 79 A.D., Marcus Rufus, drawn by an obsession that still clouds his reason, visits the Temple of Isis to make an offering in hopes of encountering Oriana, a woman who has haunted him for weeks. When she appears, Marcus entangles himself in the power struggle between Arbaces, a psychically able cultist, and Oriana and her friends.

Marcus Aurelius Rufus, a young Athenian architect who makes his home in Pompeii, saves a blind slave girl, Lydia, from being crushed by a runaway chariot. Along with Diomed, the ship owner, they visit the temple of Arbaces, whom Bulwer-Lytton describes as half prophet, half fiend.

CBS Radio Mystery Theater is a radio drama series created by Himan Brown that was broadcast on CBS Radio Network affiliates from 1974 to 1982, and later in the early 2000s was repeated by the NPR satellite feed. In New York City it was not aired by the then all-news WCBS but by its originating station, WOR, which produced and announced it as simply Radio Mystery Theater.

Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 4.0. Updated Jul 16, 2026.

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